Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 244
began to see the cause of that blindness and ignorance, which
is, that external things, which are things relating to the world
and the body, had so occupied and filled their minds that they
could not be raised into the light of heaven and look into the
things of the church beyond its doctrinals; for when matters
relating to the body and the world are loved, as they are at the
present day, nothing but darkness flows into the mind when
men go beyond those doctrines.
313. Very many of the learned from the Christian world are
astonished when they find themselves after death in a body, in
garments, and in houses, as in the world. And when they recall
what they had thought about the life after death, the soul,
spirits, and heaven and hell, they are ashamed and confess that
they thought foolishly, and that the simple in faith thought
much more wisely than they. When the minds of learned men
who had confirmed themselves in such ideas and had ascribed
all things to nature were examined, it was found that their
interiors were wholly closed up and their exteriors were
opened, that they looked toward the world and thus toward
hell and not toward heaven. For to the extent that man’s
interiors are opened he looks toward heaven, but to the extent
that his interiors are closed and his exteriors opened he looks
toward hell, because the interiors of man are formed for the
reception of all things of heaven, but the exteriors for the
reception of all things of the world; and those who receive the
world, and not heaven also, receive hell. 216
a complete human form (n. 322, 1880, 1881, 3633, 4622, 4735, 5883,
6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10594); from experience (n. 4527, 5006, 8939);
from the Word (n. 10597). What is meant by the dead seen in the holy city
(Matt. 27:53) explained (n. 9229). In what manner man is raised from the
dead, from experience (n. 168–189). His state after his resurrection (n.
317–319, 2119, 5079, 10596). False opinions about the soul and its
resurrection (n. 444, 445, 4527, 4622, 4658).
216. In man the spiritual world and the natural world are conjoined (n.
6057).